week 6: with a pen in my hand

this week on the little dream farm

If you missed last week’s Farm Note, you can go back and read it here. In it, I teased four things I’ll share with you in the month of February, this week being another one of them!

The tease for this week? I’m writing a book…well, at least partially, is what I told you last week.

Now…for the deets:

I have two really exciting trips planned in the coming weeks!

At the end of February I’m heading to Florida for a few days to spend time with David.

Then, the first week of March I’m heading to Massachusetts for a few days to spend time with the Reverend and his wife.

For those of you who are not familiar, David is the man who sold the farm to us.

He lived here for fourteen years before deciding to sell. Now in his late-seventies, while still in good health, he wanted to let it go to someone new before he could no longer maintain it the way he wanted to…and he didn’t want to watch it slip away.

Looking forward to hopefully having David back in New York this summer!

The Reverend and his wife, Jay and Linda, were the couple that owned the farm and sold it to David. They lived here from 1998 to 2009.

We were introduced to them in the most roundabout way!

Chris and I ordered cords of wood earlier this summer. The day of the delivery, a husband and wife duo showed up with the wood and we got to talking. Turns out, the Reverend is who married them, and they knew our farm really well because they used to ride his horses in the pastures and sled on the hills with the rest of the church congregation. They also happened to be here the day the old 1800s house burned down.

I told them I was really interested in learning more of the Reverend’s stories and they gave me his contact and encouraged me to reach out. Jay stopped by the farm over the summer while he was in town visiting his son, who still lives here.

In fact, just about a month ago he came by out of the blue while he was in town again and gave Chris and I this beautiful old crock he and his wife were given many years ago when they lived here. He said it had been sitting in their dining room in Massachusetts all these years, and that it seemed like it was much better suited to be right here on the farm where it belonged. We have it proudly displayed on the hutch in our living room.

Jay and his wife Linda rescued and raised American Paint Horses here on the farm - a little dream of their own.

Of all the things I anticipated about moving to this farm…getting to know the previous owners like we have and collecting their stories…was not one of them.

It’s become one of the most precious things about this farm for me—that we’ve been able to travel back in time through David and Jay and Linda’s stories and photos to see and feel and capture the spirit of what this farm was like well before it was ever in our universe.

So how did these trips come about?

At the end of the year I started feeling some kind of longing…a yearning to capture their stories and not let them slip away. I’d thought about it a time or two before, but this time I couldn’t let the feeling go…almost like an urgency about it.

So, I ruminated on it, wondering if it would be silly to ask or if they’d be protective of their privacy, or that maybe they’d outright say no…but I sent a note each to David and then Jay and Linda asking to meet them where they live to spend a few days capturing their stories…their lives before and while they lived here on the farm…

…and each of them graciously agreed.

So often we get a glimpse of only the finished product of something.

We get to see the end results of a creation…what is after it’s fully developed from what it wasn’t.

But I don’t want that to be the case with this project.

I’m feeling pulled to write the stories of this farm. Maybe those stories are meant for a book…that part I’m working hard not to create any pressure or timeline about.

In the meantime I don’t want to lock myself away in periods of solitude toiling away until one day you get to magically see the finished product.

Instead, I’d love for you to come along for the ride…as you have with so much of our life here on the farm.

What that looks like…I have no idea. But that’s where my heart is.

Maybe I’ll share snippets of what I’m writing from time to time, or behind the scenes photos and moments as I capture all these stories. Maybe I’ll share some updates of what I’m up to…like when I go to meet with our town’s Historian to gather all the context of where we live…or ask you to weigh in on titles or wording or cover art.

I’m not committing myself to any of that…but what I do know is that I’m craving the sharing of the creative process with you, especially because I’m going into it with the intention of self publishing and haven’t secured any type of agent or publisher (yet!), and haven’t set a timeline or deadline (yet!) either. So, the sky is the limit, if you will!

In the meantime, I’ve been writing down memories, capturing stories, taking photographs and saving screenshots to jog my memory. I find myself writing lines in my head while I’m on walks or standing in a moment that feels important for me to capture the feeling.

In the fifteen months since we’ve moved to the farm we’ve created so many memories…there are so many stories. Some of those will make the cut and plenty of them won’t, but I want to capture and savor and give a special place for them all so I—so that Chris and I—don’t lose them to the passing of time and the fading of so many of the little moments.

Between this and the Little Dream Farm cookbook…a project I very much care about and will continue to pursue…I’ve got my work cut out for me!

These are two projects that I plan on allowing to take time so that they both can become what I envision them as…as I can very clearly see them in my mind.

This Farm Note, in fact, was inspired by these two projects. I find the best way to get the juices flowing for writing is to have a creative writing project unrelated to the project I’m actively trying to create. For me, this provides structure and takes the pressure off of having to get into the zone for writing, since I’m more regularly in it by writing here and on our Instagram daily and weekly.

Some of you know this isn’t my first book writing adventure, either!

In 2017 I wrote and published my first book, Such is Life: 29 Life Revelations from a 30-Year-Old Dreamer.

In my 20s I had a dream and set a goal to become a published author by the time I turned 30. Such is Life was published on the day of my 30th birthday. Dreams can and do come true.

That book is a culmination of thirty incredible life lessons learned throughout my life and the real-life and true stories behind them. It’s the kind of book where you can read one lesson a day, or take it in in just one sitting.

You can grab a copy on Amazon in print or for Kindle any time. But, if you happen to want a signed copy, simply comment below and I’ll reply to you via email -or- email me at bergsteinsarah@gmail.com and I’ll sign and write a personalized note in each copy you purchase.

So that’s the exciting news from this week on the farm and I’m so looking forward to these upcoming trips to Florida and Massachusetts!!

Is there anything you’d like for me to pass on to either David or Jay and Linda?

Anything you feel like sharing about what you’ve got going on, a project you’re working on, or something you’re dreaming about? Feel free to share it here so we can encourage you and cheer you on!